


Vorbarra Ascendant

by tsarcasm



Category: Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-18
Updated: 2015-10-18
Packaged: 2018-04-26 23:48:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5025427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tsarcasm/pseuds/tsarcasm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>"Aral," Olivia whispers, hand outstretched as she gently pries the carving knife out of his hand. "Aral, it's done, it's over."</i>
</p>
<p>Yuri's Massacre and what happens after.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Vorbarra Ascendant

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by [Beatrice_Otter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beatrice_Otter/pseuds/Beatrice_Otter) in the [Bujold_Ficathon_2015](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/Bujold_Ficathon_2015) collection. 



> **Prompt:**   
> 
>
>> An AU where she survived the Massacre (and possibly Piotr didn't). What happens next? How does the civil war play out?
> 
>   
> This really serves as the start of something more, but time and commitments got in the way of fleshing it out. Hopefully it suffices! And many, many thanks to [Tez](http://archiveofourown.org/users/teza) for the encouragement and the beta. 

"Aral," Olivia whispers, hand outstretched as she gently pries the carving knife out of his hand. "Aral, it's done, it's over." The urge to cover his eyes is almost overpowering, to shield him from the results of a desperate attempt to keep her safe. Instead she pulls him to her chest and into her arms, his own wrapping around her neck as if she’s the only thing left on this world that will not cause him harm.

That he might have the right of it is not an option Olivia is willing to entertain. 

Chaos surrounds her — her father's men, having interrupted the bloody event with their own weapons and violence. Olivia feels as if she's seen enough of death to sate even the most bloodthirsty among them, having seen the Occupation and now _this_.

Sonia and Ivan's mansion had been filled with the sound of laughter not an hour ago. The phrase _quiet as the grave_ springs unbidden to her mind, which she finds to be wholly inaccurate. No, the grave was not quiet — it was filled with the memory of the screams of the dead. Olivia passes the remains of every corpse without pause as the men gesture her forward, squeezes her eyes shut and holds Aral's hand tighter the moment they pass the remains of her eldest son and daughter: among the first to die, before it registered that they were under attack.

She does not look at her sister's corpse, eyes focused on the door of the dining hall, at least until the crying starts and Olivia's heart sinks further into despair. There, protected by the bodies of Sonia and Ivan — Padma. 

The unfairness of it all strikes at the heart of her, that they could grow up under the Cetagandans and survive, but end up murdered in a time of peace. This is not the future she envisioned that night she and Piotr stood with the rest of the Counts and her family, watching the final Ceta shuttle lift off; his hand in her's. Paranoia and violence are poor rewards to be reaped from the seeds of their sacrifice.

The assassins must have missed Padma somehow, and it's only when Olivia lets go of Aral long enough to move the corpse of her sister aside that she sees how; wrapped up in blankets and shoved to the back of a chair that Princess Sonia no doubt sat in to cover her sleeping son. Fury and grief choke her; her sister, so pleased to finally start a family — dead, because one man couldn't have his own.

Oh, she knows who is responsible for this. Olivia has spent enough time in the Imperial Residence during her life to pick out the Armsmen among the hired assassins. _Vorbarra_ , and for the first time in her life her name turns to ash in her mouth. Men who swore to protect them turned against them by a word they cannot, or will not, disobey. What lies, she thinks, have they been told in order to justify this?

It hardly matters when the deed is done. Carefully pulling her nephew into her arms, Olivia whispers a few verses of a nursery rhyme her mother used to sing to her and her siblings. And one Sonia must have sung to her son, for Padma quiets. Better for Padma to be so young — not when her own son will be burdened by death: that of his siblings and that of the one he caused with his own hands. And more, Olivia thinks, the future forming before her eyes. She knows what she must do now, although the how is far more murky.

Olivia takes her son by the hand, holds her nephew in her other arm, and sets out into the night against the protests of the guards. Whatever horrors Vorbarr Sultana will throw at a woman covered in blood with two small children pale in comparison to what she's left. 

Such a mindset only lasts until she sees the approaching groundcar, not even free from the grounds of the mansion. It's only when she recognizes it as her father's does Olivia realize she's forced Aral to stand behind her, Padma clutched protectively to her chest. Breathe, she reminds herself, and for the first time in nearly two decades, has to squash the urge to throw herself at her father the moment she sees him emerge with his Armsmen.

Xav gives her a long look, expression unreadable, and then focuses on the mansion behind her. Of course he knows — his men are here and only he could have sent them, but in that moment the realization works its way through the adrenaline and the anger. Olivia doesn't need to say anything in this moment. For that she's endlessly thankful — words would fail her. They spend a long moment standing there until Olivia can't bear it a moment longer.

"Did they—"

"They tried." Prince Xav Vorbarra finishes for her. "My men got to them first."

"Good," is her response, sharp and venomous. Olivia ignores the shocked expression on her father’s face, even as he takes Padma from her arms. The fate of the rest of her family hadn’t occurred to her, but now that it’s clear she’s in no immediate danger, fear settles into her bones. Fear and a thirst for revenge. "Piotr. I need my husband."

She does not know if he still lives — it would be foolish indeed to come for her and her children and leave her husband alive. Her would-be assassin has been described as many things, the least of which is _mad_ , but foolish? Not as likely. But if she is to bring the man who did this to his knees like she desires then she will need the man who helped do the same to the Cetagandans. 

"Sonia. Ivan. What about —" Olivia can tell the moment her father tries to say her brother’s name but cannot bear to bring himself to; the grief and the weight of it drags her father down.

"Murdered," she tells her father, brushing past him to shepherd Aral into the groundcar, following after. "The three of us are all that are left." Not even the servants, she thinks with a shock, or Sonia’s other guests. Collateral damage for the sake of thoroughness. 

Xav throws one look back at the place he'd helped purchase for Sonia and Ivan two years before — a wedding gift for the new Lord Vorpatril and Princess Sonia — before sliding in beside Olivia.

A rap of her knuckles against the window calls the attention of her father’s driver, although she doubts he was doing anything _but_ listening. "The General Staff HQ. _Quickly_." She’ll give him permission to force his way through anyone else on the roads if she has to, but the streets are blessedly clear; Olivia stumbles out of the groundcar as soon as they pull up in front of the building, Aral's hand still clasped in her own.

Her father follows, shifts Padma from one arm to the next, saying nothing. Just watches her determined march towards the front doors, watches her throw them open before her. Her father made sure his daughters could hold their own even on Barrayar; had he ever imagined it would come to this, be used for this?

It does not matter what Xav thinks, she decides. This is what it is, and Olivia knows what she wants more than anything in the known Nexus.

HQ calls for Piotr as soon as they see her, and his face goes blank when he sees her — covered in blood and clutching the hand of only one child out of three; there are questions that she will answer in time, in the depth of his eyes and the tilt of his head. But what is important is obvious. Olivia thanks the god that her Betan mother believes in for an intelligent husband, for Piotr Pierre Vorkosigan, who says nothing.

"I want Yuri dead."

No one has said his name, no one has dared to voice what Olivia knows, what they suspect. She will have her uncle dead and rotting. His name distorts her face, lips pulled back in a snarl. This is what it must have felt to have been Vorkosigan on the day Vorkosigan Vashnoi disappeared from everything but memory.

"You've just committed treason, Olivia," says her father, ever the diplomat, with a wary look at the suddenly busy men around them. Piotr holds his tongue, and Olivia finds herself in love with him all over, can see the fire of vengeance in him even as Xav tries to mediate. They are of one mind, her and Piotr — Yuri must pay for this. "All the men here are oath-sworn to him."

The General Count makes a gesture, and the men around them disappear, melting deeper into the building until he calls on them again.

"They are sworn to the Emperor." Aral becomes a heavy weight against her side, her son who she is going to throw to the wolves, her second born who should have had the right to choose whatever life he wanted. _You are Vor, Aral. Sacrifice is our lot in life._ "If you will not be Emperor Xav, then by rights it belongs to my son. Yuri has gone too far, and I will not place my hands between hands who have signed off on the death of my family."

Piotr is the first to break, who reaches out to take Aral from her. The instinct to bare her teeth at him and keep him by her side is overwhelming — she lets him go, fingers uncurling around his hand. His hand, who will soon find the hands of an entire planet between his. "Let me take them, Olivia. We need to leave."

A nod, and he takes Padma from her father as well, giving instructions to a man who melts out of the wall; gestures for them all to follow him back outside. Olivia trusts her husband — to Beta Colony and every Nexus point in the galaxy and back; paranoia makes her want to scream that they will kill every remaining member of her family the moment she lets down her guard.

They tell no one where they are going, taking Xav's groundcar and leaving as quickly as they arrived — unable to find a lightflyer on short notice that could carry them all, and unwilling to wait to pull in favors. Olivia sits with Aral's head in her lap until he falls asleep, keeping watch in the silence between them all as the vehicle moves. Olivia swallows her paranoia for the moment, places her trust in a man who saved her father. They must start trusting again if she is to get what she wants, what she must have. Her son stills; her sister’s son begins to fuss in whatever dreams a child who can barely walk has.

"Do this to your son," Xav breaks the unsteady silence, his gaze heavy. Piotr has never had much of a high standing in her father's eyes, politics has kept them at odds for longer than she’s known, and will keep them apart in everything but toppling Yuri. That, Olivia thinks, she can be sure of. "And you will never know the peace you wanted when the war ended."

"Yuri has taken away what peace has given me," is her response as she stands, head tilted back and held high. This is her right, this is Aral's right, this is what must happen. "He thought he could make Barrayar his by killing our family. Instead he made it ours."

"Ezar would take it, if we offered it to him," suggests Piotr, frown deepening, and holding up his hand to stop her from talking over him. She relents, just the once. “I don't want to damn him to this bloody mess, Olivia. We do this, and he'll have the rest of his life plotted out in front of him. No freedom to choose who and what he wants to be. He will never be a soldier."

Their oldest son might have been Piotr's favorite, but Olivia knows he was just as proud of Aral's statements that he wishes to emulate his father, the way he so intently wanted to follow in Piotr's footsteps and please him. She would be taking that from him. From both of them. It's the only thing that makes her pause, resolve softening for a moment as she imagines the life her son should have had before Yuri, the barely formed new one she's taking from him, and the one she's giving him. 

She straightens, pulls her shoulders back to face her husband and her father. "I know. But he is Vor, and one day he will learn that it means sacrifice. If he learns that now, it won't break him later when he must sacrifice all that he becomes for the sake of Barrayar." A low move, Olivia knows, to appeal to Piotr through sacrifice. She remembers the pain and rage etched on his face the day that Vorkosigan Vashnoi became a radioactive hole in the ground, the price of his loyalty to her grandfather, to Barrayar.

It has bought them so little in the end.

A muscle twitches in Piotr's jaw, in his throat. He will forgive her, she thinks — must believe, because she cannot do this alone and remain herself. Olivia presses on, the steel in her voice unmistakable in her appeal. "Piotr— he will need you. I will need you." There is an emptiness in her heart where her children were, she will not lose her husband and add to it. 

A slight nod brings the first desire to smile all night. Piotr is with her, and whatever happens after will follow. Olivia turns to her father, unmoving but not, she thinks, unmoved. What would she have done, she wonders, if it was her brother who ordered the deaths of her family. Could she have turned against him even then?

Yes, she decides, because she must.

"All that I have left," Xav begins; Olivia knows she is not imaging the pain in her father’s voice. "Is yours to use." 

And like that it’s done. Treason and war agreed upon before they arrive at Ezar's command.

They wait until morning to put their hands in between his and swear their oaths — her son's face somber when it isn't cloudy with sleep. _Oh, Aral,_ she thinks, _I am so sorry._ And then they swear to her, as his regent, and she accepts them with all the imperial grace and poise that being Vorbarra gives her. She does not bend under the weight of it, does not flinch.

She is Vorbarra. Aral is Vorbarra. They will not let their planet fall when it needs them most, they will not fail it.


End file.
